Lakers' 50th is less than golden

They teetered and tottered at home against another marginal team, though they recovered this time to beat the Washington Wizards in overtime, 126-120, Sunday night at Staples Center.

The Lakers (50-24) haven't won 50 games since finishing 56-26 in 2003-04, and it was a questionable proposition whether they would get there Sunday.

But Sasha Vujacic had 20 points, Luke Walton was a spark with a season-high 19 points and a key rebound in the final seconds of overtime, and the Lakers pushed themselves away from a table filled with unpalatable losses over the previous few days (Memphis, Charlotte).

They also managed to move into third place in the West, a game behind New Orleans and San Antonio.

"This was quite a game, actually. It feels like it was really a drawn-out battle," Coach Phil Jackson said. "But it does get us to that 50-win [mark]. We think that we are going to have to win 57 or something like that if we want to finish at the top of this heap."

That would mean going 7-1 down the stretch, a discussion for another day, especially since the Lakers had struggled so much against such mediocrity.

But a victory is a victory, even against Washington (34-31), and even if it wasn't secured until Walton hustled for a rebound of Kobe Bryant's missed free throw with 13.3 seconds left in overtime. Walton then got the ball to Vujacic, whose two free throws gave the Lakers a 124-120 lead with 10.2 seconds left in overtime.

Bryant had 26 points on seven-for-24 shooting, although he had a season-high 13 assists, a notable stat after Jackson said Bryant's shoot-first mind-set in Friday's loss to Memphis "dinted" some of the other Lakers' efforts in that game.

There was no such critique after Sunday's game.

"Kobe got everybody involved," Jackson said.

Bryant established a pass-first mind-set with four assists in the first quarter after totaling only one (and a season-high 53 points) against Memphis.

"Teams are just making a conscious effort to throw the kitchen sink at me, so we have to have that trust where guys knock down shots, and we were able to do that," Bryant said.

It was a strange game all around.